LCDC Budgets $12M For McEuen Work

Lake City Development Corp. expects to spend $18.6 million in 2013, triple the amount it did two years ago, in large part due to the urban renewal agency's commitment to fund a big chunk of the McEuen Field redevelopment project. The draft budget pencils in drawing $12 million from the $16.75 million line of credit the agency has with Washington Trust Bank to pay for upgrades to the downtown park's redesign - a project set to begin this month and one of the major reasons LCDC was formed in 1997. The agency estimates it will pay the bank back around $2 million off that borrowed sum in the fiscal year. "This is a conservative budgeting approach," LCDC director Tony Berns wrote in a summary of the proposed budget, which is up for adoption today. "Given that the taxing entities ... will most likely increase the levy rates to offset the valuation decreases for 2011, which will result in higher tax increment revenues"/Tom Hasslinger, Coeur d'Alene Press. More here. (Kathy Plonka 2011 SR file photo of girls playing extreme Frisbee on McEuen Field)